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The LAAS game-of-the-week broadcasts live on your radio at 96.9FM in Baton Rouge, streaming on the internet worldwide at whyr.org and on the LAAS’ streaming website.

In the interview (beginning at 16:05 in the program) Mr. Reed addressed his recent remarks to the Baton Rouge Metro Council, his continued call for justice in the Alton Sterling case, the killing of three police officers by Gavin Long last summer and his mission to educate Baton Rouge youth in communication techniques to avoid violence. A contract with Mr. Reed’s organization, Stop the Killing Inc., as part of the BRAVE program was suspended by the City following his comments at the Metro Council and attacks by former Metro Councilman Delgado, Councilman Amoroso, and local conservative media outlet The Hayride, among others.

Among highlights of the interview, Reed said Gavin Long committed a “horrific act” and “a very serious act of terrorism,” going further to say “I apologize to those family members who lost their family in law enforcement at that particular act that took place.” Other Baton Rouge media outlets have selectively quoted from Reed’s statements to portray him as sympathetic with Long.

Explaining those comments at length, in the LAAS interview Mr. Reed said: “Salamoni’s action is what brought this havoc here to Baton Rouge, brought this violence here to Baton Rouge from Gavin Long, is what I was actually saying that violence begets violence here in Baton Rouge by Salamoni’s actions … (I’m) not glorifying what Gavin Long did because definitely, being an activist for stopping the killing I’m not ‘stop the killings just on blacks,’ I’m for stop the killings against police officers or whatever cause needs to be fought for.”

Addressing the continued lack of action by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry to charge BRPD officer Blane Salamoni in Alton Sterling’s July, 2016 death, Reed said, “This case should be closed, Salamoni should be fired according to the videos that have been seen with him placing a gun to Alton Sterling’s head. … The City Council has taken action on other officers and fired them just for making text messages. [Salamoni] should be fired based on putting a gun to an individual’s head and threatening to kill him. That’s conduct unbefitting of an officer.”

Speaking more broadly about the need for police reform in Baton Rouge and his work with youth through Stop the Killing, Inc., Slim said the movement for justice for Alton Sterling “is still a struggle, a continuation of the Civil Rights Movement to try to stop these type of individuals, get rid of them so that we can have a police force we can be proud of. We have a very good police force in Baton Rouge but we still have some bad apples that’s stuck inside of that bunch. ” Continue Reading →

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